Wireless communication systems are well known. Wireless communication systems allow mobile radiotelephones to communicate with each other and other networks, such as the Internet and the public telephone network. First and second generation wireless telephone systems are generally constrained in the amount of bandwidth available for communication. This limits capacity and also the types of services that are provided. Third generation wireless systems hold the promise of greater bandwidth, thereby increasing capacity and allowing for enhanced services, such as multimedia services. Third generation wireless communications devices include, in addition to a voice communication interface, capability for communication of data and display of data, including video.
Voicemail systems are also known. Voicemail systems allow callers the option to leave voicemail messages for parties who are unavailable. In order to leave a message, the caller is typically prompted to enter a command on a keypad of a handset or wait for a specified tone, or both. The voicemail system then records the voicemail message for a predetermined amount of time or until the caller ends the call. Proposed third generation wireless systems will permit wireless users the capability to leave messages in multimedia mail systems similar to that of voicemail systems. However, voicemail systems presently function as real-time entities that use the same amount of air interface bandwidth for recording voice messages as for regular telephone calls. This is a problem.
Therefore a need exists for a method and system for lowering the amount of air interface bandwidth used to send multimedia mail messages to a multimedia mail system.